The following article is an overview of the career of Belgian trombonist, songwriter, arranger, and producer Roland Verlooven. Because Verlooven hardly gave any interviews in the course of his career, we have to rely on others to tell his life story. The most important source of information is Roland's eldest son, Michel Verlooven, who was also a professional musician for a time and is very well informed about his father's career. Michel also provided us with valuable documentation regarding his father’s legacy. Furthermore, we interviewed several people from the music world who knew Roland Verlooven well; Roel Van Bambost, Rony Brack, Bert Candries, Hans Kusters, Eric Melaerts, Ingeborg Sergeant, Willy Sommers, and Kris Wauters. The article below is subdivided into two main parts; a general career overview (part 3) and a part dedicated to Roland Verlooven’s Eurovision involvement (part 4).
Een iets uitgebreidere Nederlandse versie van dit artikel is ook beschikbaar op deze website via deze link.
All material below: © Bas Tukker / 2024-25
Contents
- Passport
- Short Eurovision record
- Biography
- Eurovision Song Contest
- Other artists about Roland Verlooven
- Eurovision involvement year by year
- Sources & links
PASSPORT
Born: March 2rd, 1938, Ghent (Belgium)
Died: November 1st, 2017, Tremelo (Belgium)
Nationality: Belgian
SHORT EUROVISION RECORD
Roland Verlooven took part in the Eurovision Song Contest as a conductor on one occasion, leading the orchestra for Clouseau’s performance of ‘Geef het op’ on behalf of Belgium in the festival final held in Rome, 1991. Moreover, two years previously, Verlooven penned the arrangement to the Belgian entry for the contest in Lausanne, ‘Door de wind’, performed by Ingeborg.
BIOGRAPHY
Roland Verlooven was born in 1938 as the son of a gendarme. He grew up in Ghent, more specifically in the working-class neighbourhood Brugse Poort. However, after the German invasion of Belgium in May 1940, Roland Verlooven’s father was posted away from home, as Roland's eldest son, Michel, recounts: “He had to leave Ghent for the border with the Netherlands near Knocke to track down smugglers. My grandmother stayed home with my dad, who was only two years old at the time. He only got to know his father after the end of the war.” After the liberation in 1944, as Verlooven Snr. was given permission to return to Ghent, the young family was reunited. As it seems, there was little musical talent in the family, but Roland himself once explained that the fascination for music had been awoken in him by his grandfather, who took him to an opera when he was a little boy. Young Roland was so taken by the performance that he was now determined that he wanted to play an instrument as well, just like the musicians in the orchestra he had seen playing in the pit.
“I wanted to play the saxophone, but that wasn’t an option; it was way too expensive,” Roland Verlooven later recalled. He had to bide his time. Meanwhile, he immersed himself in music theory, as best he could. “Before I knew music theory, I had a book about piano lessons, but of course, I didn't understand a thing about those notes, so I just wrote something down which had to give others the impression that I knew how to compose,” he recounted about his urge to write music, which apparently developed in him early on. Somehow, his parents managed to get their son placed in the beginners’ class at the conservatoire, where Roland received his first real theory lessons.
These lessons cannot have lasted for more than a few years, because in the early 1950s, Verlooven's father was transferred from Ghent to Hal, a town south of Brussels, just on the Flemish side of the language border. There, his dream of playing an instrument finally came true. “One day, my father came home after meeting someone in the band who played the trombone and wanted to sell his. That’s how the trombone became my instrument. That was the year of The Glenn Miller Story. I was fond of big bands, and by the time I was sixteen, I was already playing in ballrooms in Anderlecht, Tubize, and anywhere in between. Our hit song back then was ‘When The Saints Go Marchin’ In’.”
Roland the rock-‘n’-roll singer at a gig in the late 1950s
Roland’s learning curve must have been very steep, because the biographical film about the American bandleader Glenn Miller, who died as a pilot in the war, was released in 1954 – the year Roland, having turned sixteen, was already playing in a ballroom orchestra, which was called The Musical Friends. His theoretical knowledge acquired at the conservatoire undoubtedly helped him get off to a flying start. Besides jazz, Roland also quickly became interested in rock ‘n’ roll, which had found its way from America to Europe thanks to the records of Bill Haley and Elvis Presley.
“As it turned out, my father had a perfect voice for rock music,” says Michel. “By then, he was a good trombone player, but he’d also taught himself to play the piano and guitar. In fact, he really loved the guitar – he never became a great guitarist, but he knew how to play the chords and accompany himself and others without any problem. A lot of young people came to those dance halls where my father performed. They wanted to hear rock ‘n’ roll. My dad was a rather shy person by nature. He didn’t really feel the urge to perform as a soloist, but performing a couple of rock songs along with some others to get the youngsters onto the dance floor was ok for him.”
Through a cousin living in Ghent, Roland was asked to fill in as a guitarist for a few nights with The Ropes, a local beat and rock group. One of the band members was the then sixteen-year-old Roel Van Bambost. “We played in ballrooms, but at one point our guitarist was out for a while due to illness,” Van Bambost explains. “Roland's cousin was my best friend at school – and this friend then approached Roland to step in. We usually performed in combination with another orchestra, which catered to the older audience with ballroom music. We were geared towards the younger crowd. Roland was a few years older than us, but he really got into the rock ‘n’ roll groove, dropping to his knees and all the rest of it. That was a lot of fun! That’s how I met him. He was from Ghent, of course, which must have facilitated the bond between us. Even though he had been living in Hal for a while, he was still speaking this unmistakable Ghent dialect. Besides, like him, I was the son of a gendarme. He and I got along pretty well back then, although we couldn't imagine that our paths would cross again later.”
Although he was absorbed by music, a career in the arts didn't seem to be on the cards for Roland. After completing his military service, he began training to become a teacher. “He actually wanted to go to university, but the financial resources weren't there,” Michel adds. “My grandfather then advised him to pursue a degree as a teacher. ‘There’ll always be a job for you in education,’ he said. Dad certainly had intellectual interests. He was particularly interested in languages. Apparently, after obtaining his degree, he actually worked as a teacher for a few months, but he quickly realised it wasn’t for him.”
The fact that Roland had to wear a soldier’s uniform during his military service could not keep him away from music
During his student days, Roland married his girlfriend Martha Vanderbeken, a girl he had met some years previously at one of his performances with The Musical Friends. Michel was born the same year they married, in 1961. A year later, a second son, Daniel, followed. After his brief career in education, Roland worked as a sales representative for the supermarket chain Colruyt for a while, but eventually, he gave in to his own predilections, applying for a job at the Belgian branch of the Parisian record label Vogue, where he took on the same position as with his previous employer.
“As a sales representative at Vogue, he had to accompany international artists when they came to Belgium to perform,” Michel explains. “That’s how he got to meet stars like Jacques Dutronc and Françoise Hardy, because a large contingent of Vogue’s artists came from France. Because dad was the only person at Vogue who spoke English, he also got to tour with all those guys from England who had their breakthrough in mainland Europe at the time. He told me he once accompanied The Kinks in Belgium, with lead singer Ray Davies. In those early years, dad must have been blown away by everything he experienced. The music business was right up his alley.”
As an employee of the small Vogue label, Roland Verlooven was close to the action. The company’s Belgian branch recorded a lot of French-language repertoire by singers like Jo Alan and Vic Valence. When recording singles with these artists, there was often a struggle to find a suitable song for the flipside. With his musical background, Roland regularly came up with a solution. In these years, he rapidly discovered his talent as a fast songwriter – and his proficiency in this field didn’t go unnoticed. Roger Meylemans, the managing director of Vogue Belgium, decided to offer his young employee a new contract as a producer and composer. Meylemans also advised him to adopt an alias. Signing for a French-language record as R. Verlooven struck the record executive as a bad idea: “Mate, with a name like that, you don’t stand a chance in hell of getting on French-language radio.” Roland then came up with an anagram that he would go on to use for the remainder of his songwriting life; Armath. After all, as he later explained to a journalist, “My wife's name is Martha and I mixed up the letters of her name for my pseudonym.”
Thanks to his perfect bilingualism, the fledgling producer was often paired with young singers from Brussels and Wallonia trying to force their breakthrough with songs in the French language. Meanwhile, Roland also sought out talent in Flanders. This led him to a performance by Miek & Roel in Ostend in 1966. Roel was none other than Roel Van Bambost, with whom he had shared a stage as a teenager in Ghent. Meanwhile, Van Bambost had begun focusing on folk repertoire with his wife Monique ‘Miek’ Holvoet. With a cover version of a Peter, Paul & Mary tune, they had won third prize in 1965 on Ontdek de Ster, a televised talent show.
Four generations of the Verlooven family; Roland (far right) with his father, grandfather, and his sons Michel (left) & Daniel (c. 1965)
“Thanks to that TV show, we saw more and more requests coming our way for gigs as Miek & Roel,” Van Bambost recalls. “When Roland came to listen to us in Ostend, we did a performance on a full-evening programme with other artists (…). Afterwards, Roland came to see us, ‘Well, the stuff you’re doing is really good... we could actually record an album with you.’ On the one hand, I felt honoured, because Roland was the first to believe in us, but I wasn't thrilled at the prospect, to be honest. You have to understand that we were still performing in English at the time. How were we going to compete on the record market with the exact groups from overseas who were our inspiration, Peter, Paul & Mary in the first place? I was able to convince Roland pretty early on that making an English-language album might not be the best idea. So we started thinking about singing in Dutch. We signed a contract with Vogue, but we wanted to take the time to find good Flemish songwriters. Fortunately, Vogue and Roland gave us the time we needed.”
“We often performed in university auditoriums. At one of those gigs, we met two students, Miel Appelmans and Miel Swillens, who turned out to be excellent lyricists. Little by little, we started taking our new material to Roland. He was always happy with the things we came up with. Being absolute beginners in the recording business, we only had him to rely on. The big boss at Vogue, Meylemans, was a really nice bloke from Brussels who spoke with a charming mixture of French and Flemish, but he had little idea of the music we were working on. Flemish folk meant nothing to him, of course, so he left it entirely to Roland. The recordings took place in Paul Leponce’s studio in Brussels. Our first album, Je kan nooit weten, was finally released in September 1967. It included the single ‘Wie wil horen’, which got a lot of airplay on nationwide radio. That record marked our breakthrough. (…)”
Miek & Roel’s first LP was so well received by the public that a follow-up album, Mijn jeugd rijdt uit op jacht, was released the following year. Meanwhile, Roland Verlooven did not rest on the laurels of his early production successes. He was constantly on the lookout for new material and performers. He worked on a wide range of genres, from folk to chanson, from soul to rock. In 1968, he decided to do a cover of an early Freddy Bell rock 'n' roll hit from 1956, ‘Giddy Up A Ding Dong.’ A newspaper article from that period sketches how Roland, described by the journalist as “round, generous, warm-hearted, down-to-earth, moving a bit heavily through the warm April days,” wanted to “freshen up an old rock tune” in the recording studio, but that “a whole line of singers, one after the other, didn’t meet his expectations.” According to the article, he then uttered a bad swearword and went on, in utter desperation, to record it himself under the slightly extended pseudonym O.J. Armath. “He recorded it in a matter of minutes and then had it released straightaway, right to number 19 in the charts. A week later, O.J. Armath had already climbed to number eight, a real success… and everyone here in the editorial department and at other record companies were wondering who this complete stranger could be.”
“That’s him trying his luck as a singer again,” Roland's son Michel says, smiling. “Of course, earlier on, he had performed as a singer with orchestras. He really liked blues and rock. For him, it wasn’t about fame and attention, which is why he released it under a pseudonym.” After the success of 'Giddy Up A Ding Dong,' Verlooven was requested by Vogue’s management to record a second single as O.J. Armath, but ‘Farewell My Love’ didn't get beyond the lower reaches of the charts. After that, Armath’s solo career was shelved for a couple of years, with Roland Verlooven limiting himself to singing background vocals for the artists he produced.
Enjoying a beer and a cigarette (c. 1968)
That same year, 1968, after five years at Vogue, Verlooven made a surprising move to rival company Philips. As time went on, the relationship between Roger Meylemans and his young producer had become somewhat strained. The Vogue executive was generally friendly and jovial, but could be downright blunt at other times. Having had several clashes with Meylemans, Verlooven decided it was time to move on.
“I suspect the discussion was also about money,” Roel Van Bambost adds. “As a talent scout and producer at Vogue, a very small company, Roland had been responsible for many hits. He had to juggle all sorts of tasks, and, in the meantime, he was also writing his first tentative arrangements, but he was still on the rather modest salary he'd signed for as a novice producer. His departure posed a problem for us, because we were under contract with Vogue as Miek & Roel, but suddenly we lost our guide. That's why we didn't release a new album during that period, because I wouldn’t really have known who to suggest as Roland’s replacement.”
At Philips, Verlooven signed a contract as a producer with the company’s record division, Phonogram. With his new employer, he continued to tirelessly explore the length and breadth of Flanders in search of promising artists. On his travels, he was soon joined by Hans Kusters, an ambitious young man from Breda, just across the border in the Netherlands, who worked for Primavera, Philips’ publishing house. They quickly became an inseparable duo. Almost every weekend, they went out together for two or three nights.
“Our wives hated our friendship,” Kusters says dryly when asked about this period, “because I was the reason Roland came home late and vice versa. At our management’s request, we scoured competitions and talent shows throughout Flanders. That’s how we discovered several young artists. But equally important was the friendship that quickly grew between us. We had the same sense of humour. As a typically blunt Dutchman, I made lewd remarks he'd never heard before. Roland was more of the mischievous type. I recall how he once asked for two Picons (aperitifs – BT) in a restaurant. When he was told they didn't have any, he’d say, ‘Oh, in that case we’d like four.’ That’s a brand of humour that others, especially women, find terribly annoying. Teenage humour, if you like. It was a typical case of two men hanging out together. (…)”
Holding the slide of his trombone, with spouse Martha and son Michel by his side (1971)
Around the same time, a young singer from Hoogstraten on the Dutch-Belgian border, Jozef ‘Zjef’ Vanuytsel, was discovered by Philips. Vanuytsel was an architecture student composing folk tunes in his spare time who was a regular performer on the student circuit. The troubadour was honoured by the record company's interest, but didn’t blindly accept Philips’ offer. He requested sophisticated arrangements and a producer who knew his craft – in other words, a job tailor-made for Roland Verlooven. Verlooven and Vanuytsel got to work, along with string arranger Frans Ieven. The album De zotte morgen, released in 1970, offered a blend of dreamy melodies and socio-critical lyrics, perfectly suited to the zeitgeist. The album was universally well received, ultimately selling over 100,000 copies, earning it platinum status. To this day, De zotte morgen stands out as a monument in the history of Flemish song.
The collaboration with Zjef Vanuytsel was one of Roland Verlooven’s last jobs at Philips; in 1970, two years after his departure, he returned to Vogue. Roland had been unhappy at Philips. He complained about a lack of freedom of movement, ‘Apparently, an artistic director wasn't supposed to be creative and write songs at that time.’ At Vogue, despite frequent personal squabbles with director Roger Meylemans, Roland had always been given ample freedom as a songwriter. But at the larger and more cumbersome company which Philips was, such initiatives weren’t always appreciated. In getting back together with Meylemans, Roland settled on a new way forward with the man he had been at loggerheads with previously.
Freshly returned to his old stomping grounds, Roland found himself recording a third LP with folk duo Miek & Roel. “Of course, I was thrilled to have him back," Roel Van Bambost recalls. “We immediately benefited from his input. One of Roland's strengths was finding a good group of session musicians. For our third album, released in 1970, he brought in two young musicians from Wallonia: Jacques Albin, a bass player, and pianist Jean-Luc Manderlier. Roland didn't write out the arrangements for them, instead giving them some pointers and then trusting their craftsmanship. For the piece ‘De geboorte’, he came up with the idea of having a flute play the intro. Roland was a good musician who often had such ideas. He then allowed the session musicians to work on those on the spot. For another track, ‘Het verdronken land van Saeftinge’, Manderlier improvised a piano part that was really good. I still play that riff whenever performing that song. That’s how Roland introduced us to musicians who were completely unknown in Flanders. I regularly performed with Jacques Albin later on. It’s fair to say that Roland influenced our sound in multiple ways.”
“Honestly speaking, we had some heated arguments now and then, Roland and I. Things could really heat up when the arrangements were discussed. Roland was primarily thinking commercially and wanted to embellish our songs a bit more with somewhat louder rhythm parts, a bit heavier than the pared-down style we folk musicians were used to. We'd go through the arrangements beforehand. I did push back quite a bit, saying things like, ‘If that's how you want to record it, then just forget about it.’ These could be fiery discussions, but the good thing about Roland was that he never got resentful. We could just speak our minds. Usually, at the end of a recording day, we’d have dinner and a couple of drinks together. Roland was a real bon vivant, you know. Any arguments we would have had during the recording were long resolved by that time.”
The third full album by Miek & Roel, released in 1970
Miek & Roel’s third album earned the duo and their producer a gold record. Thanks to his work with them as well as with Zjef Vanuytsel, Roland Verlooven was now considered the leading producer in the folk genre in Flanders. In 1971, chansonnier Hugo Raspoet and the ensemble Lamp, Lazerus & Kris also turned to him for their albums. The songs ‘Helena’ by Raspoet and ‘De onverbiddelijke zoener’ by the folk trio became evergreens.
That same year, Verlooven also embarked on two new solo ventures. Under the pseudonym Mighty Wave, he recorded an English-language pop song co-written with Roel Van Bambost, ‘You Gotta Help Me’. Despite Verlooven’s characteristically gritty voice, the Joe Cocker-style song failed to chart. Even more striking was his next alter ego, Désiré Mozambe. Under that name, he recorded two singles, ‘Sénégal’ and ‘Kwêyi ta kwênda’, highly rhythmic instrumental pieces in the Afro style.
“He recorded those tunes with a Zairean guy he had met,” son Michel recalls. “It was a guy from the Matonge neighbourhood in Brussels, where many people of Congolese descent live. He sang a few catchphrases to make the sound as credible as possible, but the music was all my father’s. Of course, those singles were offered for sale in the newspaper stands in that same part of Brussels. For that time, these pieces had a very progressive sound. The brass section, that rhythm – it’s basically pure dance music, but in early 1970s style.”
Meanwhile, Roland Verlooven had developed a reputation as a producer in a host of genres, but the commercial Dutch-language repertoire wasn’t among those. That changed in 1971. The management of Vogue commissioned their producer to find the Flemish answer to American teenage idols David Cassidy and Donny Osmond. In December 1970, in a dancehall in his hometown of Hal, Verlooven attended a concert by cover band The Yeats, featuring nineteen-year-old bassist and lead singer Willy De Gieter. Seeing the potential in him, Verlooven offered him an audition.
“With that cover band, we only played English songs – the songs of The Beatles, The Stones, The Kinks, Elvis, you name it,” Willy says. “But Roland then explained that he wanted me to sing in Dutch. I wasn't immediately excited about the idea, but after thinking about it for a bit, I decided I wanted to give it a try, just for the fun of it; ‘Who knows, it might work out, and if not, I’ll just keep playing in my cover band’, that type of attitude. For that vocal test, I rehearsed two songs in Dutch. I thought I’d never hear from Roland again, but he called me back and said he wanted me to record a single with him. He came up with the stage name Willy Sommers. The first record flopped, but the follow-up, 'Zeven anjers, zeven rozen', was a huge hit in Flanders in the summer of 1971. That was the start of my Flemish career – and, from that point, there really wasn’t a way back.”
‘Zeven anjers, zeven rozen’ was a composition by Roland Verlooven himself. The strange thing was that it was actually the flipside of Willy Sommers’ second single release. When asked about the secret of the song, Willy Sommers says, ‘Vogue's director told his representatives to make sure that the single was in every jukebox in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium. At that time, there were 36,000 jukeboxes in cafés across Flanders! The record was played there, and people got into the tune. They started dancing to it, singing along to the melody. Thanks to those jukeboxes, I eventually got a television appearance. I’d never been on TV before. Suddenly, the audience got to know me; a young guy of nineteen with a modern look… and yes, we had hit the jackpot!”
Why was the melodramatic ‘Zeven anjers, zeven rozen’ such a hit with the audiences in Flanders, rather than the cheerful ‘Gina’, another composition by Roland which was on the A side? “First of all, this lyric about a failed marriage is a heartbreaking story,” Michel Verlooven comments. “It captured people's imagination. Compared to that, ‘Gina’ was more of a run-of-the-mill track. Also, don't underestimate the role of the session musicians. Burt Blanca played the guitar on ‘Zeven anjers, zeven rozen’. He was the number one guitarist in Belgium at the time. My father could have asked a more established studio guitarist like Freddy Sunder, but he knew he’d end up with a more dated sound. Burt Blanca used a wah-wah pedal for his guitar part in ‘Zeven anjers’. That was the type of sound you’d hear from bands from abroad, but not on Belgian records. Because my father enjoyed listening to the latest albums by The Rolling Stones and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, he understood that you needed younger people with fresh ideas to achieve a contemporary sound. Sound-wise, there was certainly an element of innovation compared to other songs in the same genre by artists like Will Tura or Jimmy Frey.
The success of ‘Zeven anjers, zeven rozen’ took almost everyone by surprise, including the songwriter and producer himself, as Michel recalls; “In the summer of 1971, my parents were away on holiday in Italy with my brother and me. Meanwhile, my grandparents were looking after our house. My father drove us there by car. When we arrived back home in Hal, my grandfather was standing in the doorway, gesticulating like a maniac. He grabbed a newspaper and shouted, ‘Look at this, man, 100,000 singles!’ My dad was stunned. While he was blissfully unaware enjoying the sun in Italy, Sommers was topping the charts. Mobile phones didn't exist yet. It took off in just a few weeks – no more than two or three weeks. Before we left, dad was already aware that the B side was more popular. He was a little surprised by that, but the fact that it had suddenly rocketed to number one completely stupefied him.”
After the success of the Flemish version, Verlooven set out to conquer the German market with ‘Zeven anjers, zeven rozen’. He hastily re-recorded it with Sommers as ‘Sieben Küsse, Sieben Rosen’. The song was a hit in Germany as well. There was even a Spanish version, ‘Siete rosas, siete besos’, released by a small Catalan company, Mayo Fonografica. Soon after the song came out in Spain, an invitation from Barcelona for a television appearance followed. Roland and Willy travelled to the Catalonian capital together.
“When they were being taken from the airport to their hotel, they heard the song playing on the radio in their taxi,” Michel recounts his father’s anecdote. “My dad asked the driver if it was a big hit. The man confirmed it could be heard very often. After the television show, they stayed for a few more days for radio interviews. They wanted to talk with Willy everywhere. As it turned out, that song was a huge hit! But after about a year, my father started wondering why the royalties from Spain weren’t coming in. The title wasn’t even on his payoffs. When inquiring about the matter at Phonogram, he was told, ‘Yes, that might be true, but this is not worth pursuing.’ He then called the company in Spain, but communication was very difficult. These were the days of Franco, you know. It wasn’t easy to get your way in such a faraway country. In the end, my dad just let it go. He never made a penny from it… not a hint, while the guy at the head of that Spanish company probably bought himself a new limousine.”
In all, the single ‘Zeven anjers, zeven rozen’ sold over half a million copies. Now that Willy Sommers had achieved such popularity with one song, a follow-up was quickly needed. Verlooven came up with ‘Sympathie is geen liefde’, another huge hit in Flanders. “Dad wrote that song in under an hour,” Michel recalls. “One Sunday morning, he went for a walk with my brother and me in the fields around Hal. We lived in a beautiful rural area. During that walk, he got the idea. When we got home, he immediately grabbed a pencil and a piece of paper and wrote out the lyrics. Then he played the song on the guitar for my mother and the two of us. It was incredible. My father generally worked very quickly. Sometimes, when he was in danger of getting stuck, he’d grab a rhyming dictionary, but usually he didn’t need it. He also had a notebook he sometimes went back to. He’d jot down random thoughts in it, which he would develop later on.”
When asked about the secret of his hit compositions for Willy Sommers and others, Roland Verlooven once explained, “The starting point is usually a musical phrase. I try to find a kind of slogan, further working on that to create a full song.” Whereas the arrangement of ‘Zeven anjers, zeven rozen’ was limited to rhythm instruments with winds, ‘Sympathie is geen liefde’ also featured strings. While Roland Verlooven had outsourced the orchestral arrangements for Zjef Vanuytsel’s album, he took care of those for Willy Sommers himself from the outset. The first full album for Sommers, Met sympathie, released in 1972, was completely arranged by Verlooven. Initially, the producer was assisted by Vogue’s staff arranger Harry Frékin as his fellow conductor of the sessions, but he soon took over that task entirely.
Roland in action (in the foreground) playing the trombone in Willy Sommers’ live band (1972)
“He had already been taught the basics of harmony at the Ghent Conservatoire,” Michel explains, “but when he needed to get into more detail for his studio work, he bought some theory books to further develop his skills. I've always known him at his desk writing out complete arrangements; brass instruments, strings, anything. As a child, I often went to the studio with my father during the summer holidays when he was doing orchestral sessions. He usually worked with Albert Speguel’s string section; they were the best on offer. Those guys were hired by the hour, so unnecessary loss of time was a liability. If there turned out to be errors in the score, these had to amended on the spot. Computer programs like Logic Pro weren’t around to help you out! So, in preparing for such a recording, he had to be alert. Initially, he felt a certain tension during those kinds of sessions, but over time he became so proficient that things hardly ever went wrong.”
Now that Willy Sommers had suddenly become the country’s most popular recording artist, he received invitations for gigs from every corner of Flanders. This entailed a significant increase in Verlooven’s workload, as Willy Sommers recalls. “When he signed me, Roland had had to promise my mother he’d take good care of me. Otherwise, she wouldn't let me sign that record deal. ‘You’d better stick to your promise, or else,’ she told him. Yes, my mom didn’t beat about the bush! So Roland was my manager for a long time alongside his role as a producer. In the beginning, Roland's wife even handled the bookings and my administration. This was a small team! You can imagine that, in those early years, I thought of Roland as a second father. Being about fifteen years older than me, he already had loads of showbiz experience, while I knew nothing. I was relying on him blindly.”
Initially, Sommers toured Flanders with his old companions from The Yeats as his backing group, but soon venue owners began to complain about the poor level of musicianship. Roland’s son, Michel, recalls how difficult the situation was for his father.
“He tried everything to raise the level of the band. At one point, he even included himself in the lineup as a trombonist, while also singing backing vocals. Unfortunately, it didn't do the trick. After a few months, he went to Willy to tell him things couldn't go on like this. Willy couldn't bring himself to give his band members their marching orders. ‘But listen, Roland, they’re my friends! We've known each other since we were babies.’ So there was no other option; my dad had to go tell these guys it was over. This led to some quite unsavoury discussions. The sound engineer was also thrown out. He then came to our house in the dead of night, ringing the doorbell to argue with my dad. It was all rather unpleasant. In the end, dad offered that guy the job of looking after the lighting. Back then, there were only two spotlights for a gig, one on the left and one on the right; it wasn’t a job which required a lot of skill! After that, in consultation with Willy, my father formed a new band, with Ronny Temmer's orchestra being the backbone. Temmer was a singer who was nearing the end of his career. Dad then expanded this band with a few young musicians. It truly was a top-notch orchestra. Almost all of those guys later became highly sought-after studio musicians. (…)”
The producer on stage with his protégé celebrating yet another gold record (c. 1972)
Although his work with Willy Sommers often absorbed him completely, Roland Verlooven still found time for other productions. For example, he achieved enormous chart success in France with ‘Angélique’, a song he composed with one of his session musicians, Jacques Albin. The performer was a young singer from Brussels, Christian Vidal, yet another of Verlooven’s discoveries.
“I remember when my dad had just recorded that song,” Michel says. “He came home and, even before he had taken off his coat, he said, ‘This song is going to be a huge hit.’ He then sang the tune for us. Well, he was right, because in France alone they sold almost two million singles. It also charted in Canada. On tour in France, Vidal was approached by all sorts of people who asked him about his producer. ‘Verlooven? Who on earth is that?’ He then allowed himself to be persuaded to work with a French producer. So he dropped my dad, but he never had a hit like ‘Angélique’ ever again in the remainder of his career.”
Meanwhile, Willy Sommers had one hit success after the other throughout the 1970s; ‘Weet je nog die slow’, ‘Blijf nog een uur bij mij’, ‘Holiday’, and so on. After the success of the Spanish and German versions of ‘Zeven anjers, zeven rozen’, a second international success followed when a new composition by Roland for Sommers, ‘Dans met mij tot morgenvroeg’, performed by Danish singer Gitte Hænning, was a hit in Germany under the title ‘Laß mich heute nicht allein’. The enormous productivity of Sommers and Verlooven was striking; between 1972 and 1977, no fewer than eight (!) albums with new songs were released on the Vogue label, largely composed by Armath.
“I composed songs myself as well,” Willy Sommers adds, “but when we got together and compared my tunes with his, Roland’s almost always took precedence. I was never spiteful about that, because every single we released was a hit. There was no need to look for other composers and lyricists. I was loyal to Roland. Everything we did together was based on equality. He never imposed his will on me. If I didn't like a song, he was okay with it. He even discussed the arrangements with me. Once the musical part was finalised, I recorded the vocals. After a day of hard work in the studio, we would have dinner in a restaurant in downtown Brussels. There we raised a glass the success of our new hit. Roland really enjoyed life. He even taught me to drink wine! And then afterwards, we would go to a jazz club to listen to live music. Yes, this was so much more than a business relationship. In fact, Roland had become my best friend.”
“This was so much more than a business relationship. In fact, Roland had become my best friend” – Willy Sommers with his producer (c. 1974)
The food and drinks afterwards provided Verlooven with a welcome outlet, as he was otherwise almost constantly at work. For Willy Sommers, a new single had to be released every three months. Moreover, an endless supply of new tracks were required to fill the albums. On top of that, there were productions with folk artists and Francophone singers. Roland’s children didn’t see as much of their father as they would have liked.
“We moved from Hal to Keerbergen in the mid-1970s,” Michel recounts. “My father had his own office in that house. He sat at his desk day and night. He worked with an impressive list of artists simultaneously, writing songs and working on the arrangements. That room of his was thick with smoke! He smoked one cigarette after another. It even got to the point that the school doctor once told me I really needed to quit smoking. When I told him I didn't smoke at all, that doctor shouted, ‘Don’t you lie to me, boy!’ But it was because of my dad! The whole house was blue with cigarette smoke. Looking back, I regret not seeing my father more often during those years. He was such a sweet, attentive man, but his work completely consumed him. He was bad at handing parts of his job over to others. Eventually, he couldn't handle all the arrangements for Sommers anymore. So he asked a Walloon musician to take over. He gave him precise instructions on the sound he was looking for, where he wanted strings or guitar. That guy then worked it all out for him.”
Following the success of Miek & Roel's third LP in 1970, Verlooven recorded three more albums with the folk duo; Zingen Tom Paxton (1972), In de tijd van… (1975), and In het nieuw (1980). “We stayed with Roland until I temporarily quit the music business to become a television director,” Roel Van Bambost explains. “We always enjoyed working with Roland and never regretted it. People sometimes asked me if we shouldn't try teaming up with a younger producer, but we didn't want that. I recall how Roland always encouraged Miek to hit the high notes. She doubted her own abilities now and again, but he would patiently sit down at the piano with her to practise her lines. It was hard work, but he always remained courteous, ‘I know you can do it, just give it a try.’ That's how he boosted her confidence. Not suffering from a big ego, Roland was easy to work with. He wasn’t looking for attention to be focused on himself. He simply worked hard for his artists. It was only later when I realised that's not the norm. I never had such a good connection with any producer later on.”
In 1978, after eight years at Vogue, Roland Verlooven decided to branch out as an independent producer. Vogue’s Paris headquarters was in the process of divesting its subsidiaries, including the branch in Brussels. Moreover, Verlooven had become increasingly unhappy with having to work with the new management in Brussels, as his son Michel recounts.
In the recording studio, at work at the mixing console (c. 1976)
“Dad once wrote and produced a single for Vogue with a French artist. He took it to the director, but the man told him, ‘No, Roland, that's rubbish. The mix isn't good.’ He then reluctantly promised to redo the mix after the weekend. But he drove home and just left the tape in the trunk of his car. He was really offended. ‘What's this guy going on about? The mix is perfect, I'm not going to change a thing. Why throw money down the drain?’ On Monday, going back to the office with the exact same tape, he played it to the director again. ‘So, what do you think now?’ Do you know what the guy said? ‘Brilliant, Roland, brilliant, much better.’ My father really had enough of that kind of situation, so he decided to call it a day. As a freelancer, he obviously had more freedom to choose what projects to work on. He also set up his own music publishing company, Rover Music. From then on, he had full publishing rights to the songs he produced instead of having to give half of it to the record company. Money certainly played a part in his decision.”
One of the first projects Verlooven got to work on after leaving Vogue was Zjef Vanuytsel's new LP. After De zotte morgen, the folk singer had recorded with different production teams, which resulted in two albums with a rather eccentric sound – especially De zanger (1976), with its extensive use of sonic tricks and somewhat contrived arrangements. Under Verlooven’s guidance, the singer-songwriter returned to simplicity with a new album project in 1978, which was given a more natural sound and delicate string arrangements, largely written by musicians from Vanuytsel’s own band. With this album, entitled De stilte van het land, Vanuytsel once again reached the level of his debut album, with ‘Tussen Antwerpen en Rotterdam’ and ‘Laat alleen mijn goede vrienden over’ as the tracks that have lingered longest in the collective memory.
For the sessions for De stilte van het land, Roland Verlooven gathered an experienced group of musicians, including Ronny Sigo, Jean-Pierre Onraedt, and Marc Malyster. He also called upon Eric Melaerts, a twenty-year-old guitarist with no studio experience. “In fact, Roland had never met me,” Melaerts explains. “He had heard of me from another guitarist, Chris Peeters. Chris had seen me at work in Mechlin. Roland then drafted me in when Chris himself or someone else was unavailable. The sessions were at Studio Madeleine in Brussels. I remember that vividly, because it was quite a stressful experience for me. Nobody knew me. Other musicians were watching me with suspicion. I was immediately put to the test. The engineer turned on a humming sound and then asked me, ‘Is it perhaps your cable which isn’t working well?’ Still, everything went well. De stilte van het land was a good album. After that, I joined Zjef Vanuytsel’s live band, touring with him for over three years. This made me a household name in the Flemish music world. That’s how my career took off.”
“In the years that followed, I continued to do plenty of studio work for Roland. As a producer, he allowed me a lot of artistic freedom. One time, I was recording several guitar tracks for one of Roland’s own compositions. I played an eight-bar solo, just because it felt right. Surprised, Roland asked why I was playing that solo, but then he said, ‘Yeah, that’s a good solo – you know what, let’s keep it!’ It was the same with others. When drummer Walter Mets once asked about his ideas for a percussion part, Roland replied in his inimitable Ghent patois, ‘Well, just play me a bit of rubbish on those cymbals of yours.’ Roland had us in stitches all the time. He was a unique figure, a kind of Godfather. On top of that, the man’s repertoire knowledge was unbeatable. He knew everything about folk music, while being crazy about Sinatra and Pavarotti as well – even though the music he recorded himself had nothing to do with either of them. I look back on Roland very fondly. He gave me the opportunity, opening the door for me. Without him, I wouldn’t have had a career.”
Zjef Vanuytsel’s acclaimed fourth studio album, released in 1978
Although Roland Verlooven had had a good start to his freelance career thanks to the Zjef Vanuytsel albums, things weren't exactly going smoothly for him in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Around that time, the recording business almost collectively hit a slump, with declining sales figures. The artist in Flanders perhaps most affected by this was Willy Sommers. After Verlooven left Vogue, Sommers signed a long-term contract with Philips, but the five albums he released with Verlooven between 1979 and 1985 all flopped. “Suddenly, the number of gigs plummeted,” Sommers recalls. “You couldn't maintain a permanent orchestra without playing several times a week. I suddenly realised my music career could be over. In those years, I did all sorts of things on the side. I owned two boutiques and even opened a restaurant in Antwerp, but all of that wasn't really to my liking.”
While Sommers was busy trying to save his singing career, Roland Verlooven continued to attempt to hit the charts with promising Walloon singers, mostly youngsters with Italian roots, but releases with vocalists like Quinto di Rocco and Elio Visconti left audiences unimpressed. In those years, Verlooven even recorded a French cover of a Toto Cutugno song with the Italian-Belgian football prodigy Enzo Scifo, but the Anderlecht midfielder’s vocal abilities proved insignificant compared to his talents as a player.
“To make matters worse, there was also Claude Barzotti,” Michel adds. “He was a guy working for Vogue as a sales representative in the 1970s. Thanks to an intervention by Roger Meylemans, he had been given the opportunity to record a few singles as a singer with my father as his producer. One of them was ‘Madame’, but it didn’t sell more than a few hundred copies. Just around the time my father's business was struggling, the song was rereleased in a new version, which was a massive hit. As it turned out, Claude Barzotti had taken the song to Paris. Under the guidance of a French producer, he had recorded a new version, which was very successful. So you see, not everything my dad touched turned to gold. He was still working day and night, but the big commissions weren't coming his way anymore. He didn't let on much to us, but you could tell he wasn't feeling good about it.”
As a freelancer, Roland had the opportunity to team up again with his old partner from the Phonogram days, Hans Kusters. Kusters had left Philips in 1972 to start his own music publishing company. From the moment Verlooven left Vogue, he became the regular producer for Kusters' own projects.
“It was great to be able to work with Roland again,” says Kusters. “We had remained friends throughout the intervening years. Whenever we would sit down together, we would come up with the craziest ideas. Making a record about a man who buys the wrong shoes. ‘Oh, ah, my shoes are too small, I can't dance in my shoes,’ I would shout; and Roland would just come up with a melody that fitted the lyrics. Back then, we even released a record called ‘’k Moet pipi doen, papa’ (in English: ‘I Have To Pee, Papa’ – BT). The two of us recorded it as a duo, released it under a pseudonym. At some point, we were alerted that there was a huge demand for lounge music in Japan. Roland and I hit the studio and shouted out a long list of Latin bird names, drowned into some vague keyboard sounds in the background. As you’ll understand, those were things that never made it onto the radio in the Netherlands or Belgium.”
While success for the two friends was still waiting around the corner, Roland did make the charts with another novelty project, the Gantwerp Rappers – Gantwerp being a portmanteau of the birthplaces of Roland Verlooven and one of his regular studio guitarists, Antwerp native Ronny Sigo. Together, they recorded a rap song with Dutch lyrics in 1980, at a time when almost no one in the Benelux had even heard of hip-hop. The title, ‘Poopeloo’, is about drunkenness and is a reference to the Flemish expression poepeloerezat, i.e. heavily inebriated. After the hit success of ‘Poopeloo’, Verlooven and Sigo came up with a follow-up, ‘Zeveren’, in which Roland shouts out in Ghent patois, ‘Kââk, kââk, een tweedââiker’, or in English: ‘Look, look, a double-decker bus’. However, after those two singles, the Gantwerp Rappers project came to an end.
Meanwhile, Roland Verlooven continued his talent scouting throughout the 1980s, not only teaming up with young artists, but also steadily on the lookout for talented musicians who could modernise the sound of his studio productions. One of this fresh crop of session musicians was a young synthesiser player called Rony Brack. The Antwerp-born Brack had just finished a tour with The Pebbles, Fred Bekky's band.
“Roland knew of me thanks to that tour with Fred,” Brack comments. “He wanted me to play synthesiser for some session. It must have been in 1980 or thereabouts. At the time, two people were used to produce synth parts; one to program and manipulate the sounds and then a pianist to play the parts. When it became clear to Roland after a few sessions that I was more than capable of programming and playing the synthesiser myself, which made the whole process way more efficient, my life changed drastically. The sound engineer told his colleagues in other studios about me; soon, I found myself working as a session player seven days a week. At one point I’m sure I was involved in most of the recordings released in Belgium that included electronic elements; not necessarily because I was so much better than anyone else, but because there was nobody else. My career really took off thanks to Roland. He was the first to see my potential.”
Roland (to the right) as a laureate at a SABAM meeting with fellow prize-winning producer Lou Deprijck (left) and the president of the Belgian society of copyright holders (1983)
When asked about Roland Verlooven's main quality as a producer, Rony Brack doesn't have to think long. “Roland always thought commercially first and foremost. Fred Bekky was primarily a musician; he wanted to make something musically interesting, which would catch on with audiences as well. That wasn’t Roland’s way of thinking. If the audience liked a simple oompah tune, that was fine with him. Fred would never release cheap commercial material. I remember one time I was in the studio with four session musicians making a recording for Roland. Afterwards, we said to him, ‘That was a cool piece, Roland. We really enjoyed ourselves playing it!’ He covered his face with his hands. We were surprised, but he said, ‘If musicians like it, I’m not going to sell a single record!’ Of course, he wanted to make us laugh, because Roland was a really funny guy, but it also revealed what he was like as a producer. He was always looking for that little melody the gardener would whistle. Don't get me wrong, musically he was capable of creating beautiful things – string arrangements and all – but the basic idea behind almost everything he did was always that it had to have the potential to appeal to the masses.”
Even younger than Brack is Bert Candries, a multi-instrumentalist from Brussels, who became Roland Verlooven’s regular bassist from the mid-1980s onwards. “Roland initially worked with Yvan De Souter, whom we all called Ketje,” Candries explains, “but Ketje had all sorts of problems. At one point, he couldn't work anymore. I took over that job from him. The first studio project I did for Roland was probably an album with Willy Sommers (‘Een nieuwe liefde, een nieuwe geluid’, 1985 – BT). Unlike Willy, who was a show guy first and foremost, Roland was a true musician, someone completely dedicated to his craft. I can still picture him grabbing a bunch of music scores, looking at me and the other musicians, and saying, ‘Let’s make some headway today, guys!’ He was also specifically looking for the input of the musicians he worked with. When I asked him how he envisioned the bass part, he just said, ‘Amaze me!’ That was great! It didn’t mean he was ok with anything you would come up with. Roland wanted ideas which worked well. He was always listening with a commercial ear. If your approach sounded too complicated, he would immediately say, ‘I’d try something different.’ Away from the studio, he was a fantastic epicurean, a truly great person. He once said, ‘If you haven’t got a hit record to your credit by the time you’re forty, you’ll never have one.’ And yes, in my case he was right, because I’ve never had a real hit as a songwriter.”
After Willy Sommers, the artist with whom Roland Verlooven had the longest working partnership was a singer from Brussels who called himself Le Grand Jojo, or Lange Jojo in Dutch. His repertoire consisted of upbeat party tunes. In the early 1970s, the singer, whose real name was Jules Vanobbergen, signed with Vogue, as he was paired to Roland Verlooven as his producer. As with Willy Sommers, Verlooven was expected to release several singles a year with Le Grand Jojo. Several hits followed in the 1970s, mostly covers of German songs. Roland Verlooven closely followed the German charts and was a connoisseur of Schlager music. The best-known of these records probably was ‘On a soif!’, a sing-along known in Germany as ‘Kreuzberger Nächte sind lang’.
However, the success of that record was completely overshadowed by another song by Le Grand Jojo, which went on to become a global hit in the most unusual of fashions. In 1985, Brussels football club RSC Anderlecht won the Belgian league for the first time in four years. This gave Hans Kusters an idea. “My accountant was also the accountant for Anderlecht. He took me to the cafeteria where the players would eat their onion mash after morning training. That’s how I became friends with some players, even though I’m not really a football fan. Brazen as always, I’d talk to those guys and say, ‘Shall we make a record to celebrate the title?’ As a matter of fact, I had tried to come up with an Anderlecht song before, following their title in 1981, but that didn't work out well. The approach had been ‘too Dutch’, as their managing director said. The next attempt had to be in true Brussels style. Obviously, the only artist from Brussels you could ask for something like that was Le Grand Jojo... and his producer was none other than my good friend Roland. So I commissioned the two of them to sit together and come up with something.”
Verlooven himself could still vividly remember how the song, originally bearing the simple title ‘Anderlecht Champion’, came about one evening, as he was a guest of Le Grand Jojo and his wife. “While we were putting the finishing touches to the verses at his house in Grand Bigard (village on the western edge of Brussels – BT), his wife was watching Bonanza on RTL Television. We were still looking for a chorus, when she told us we were making too much noise. So we moved to the kitchen, where the washing machine was running.”
“We were looking for the right music, but we couldn't come up with anything,” Le Grand Jojo adds. “As it happened, my wife had just turned on the washing machine. It made this sound, ‘Tuck, tuck, tuck,’ and suddenly Roland said, ‘Oh, that's the beat!’" Verlooven himself could still laugh about it years later, “I’ve always had a thing about refrigerators and washing machines! We developed further on that idea, put together arrangements, and hired musicians. After that, it was just a matter of getting all the Anderlecht players together, including coach Paul Van Himst. That studio recording was memorable.”
The song, with the chorus Allez, allez, we are the champions, was recorded by Le Grand Jojo in French as well as in Dutch. Both versions were released on the same single, which was put on sale in Anderlecht’s club store. That's where the story would have ended, had it not been for a play-off between Belgium and the Netherlands in November 1985, with one qualification ticket for the World Cup in Mexico being at stake. That evening, Hans Kusters was watching television, “And what happened? Five minutes before the end, Georges Grün headed the ball past Van Breukelen. Holland was knocked out, Belgium went to Mexico. In the stadium in Rotterdam, a few Belgians started blaring out, ‘Allez, we are the champions.’ I told Grand Jojo, ‘Now that Belgium is going to Mexico, we have to do something.’ So we took the existing music track from the Anderlecht song, added Latin-style trumpets, and replaced allez with olé. Then we put a sombrero on Le Grand Jojo’s head and gave him a Belgian flag for the cover of the French-language single. A Dutch version was recorded by Walter Capiau.”
“So we had two irons in the fire, two records. Then came the summer of 1986. Le Grand Jojo went to Mexico as the mascot of the Belgian squad; and what happened in Mexico? The Belgians beat Russia, they beat Spain, they got incredibly far, all the way to the semi-finals. Everyone in Belgium was loudly singing, ‘Olé, we are the champions’. The country was one huge street party! The two versions of our song were in the Belgian charts for weeks.”
But the story doesn't end there, because Hans Kusters now came up with the idea of making a dance version. He and Roland rushed into the studio to create a version with heavy beats, released under the pseudonym The Fans. “I then went to the Costa Brava,” Kusters continues. “I knew those discos. I would approach DJs and give them bottles of whiskey if they promised to play our record. The people on the beach were humming it; you could feel something was brewing. The single was picked up and taken home by tourists, especially from Germany. At one point, I got a call from a fellow publisher from West Germany who desperately wanted the publishing rights for the German market. The following year, at MIDEM, the annual record fair in Cannes, I ran into a Japanese guy who wanted our song to be the theme tune for a football programme on television. Long story short, it was a big hit in Japan – not once, but twice, even reaching number one in the charts there.”
In the following years, the song could be heard in football stadiums more and more regularly, as it was picked up by fans, not just in Belgium, but across Europe. Hans Kusters couldn’t believe his luck. “My Dutch friends all said, ‘You don’t really believe an Ajax or Feyenoord fan is going to sing ‘Olé, we are the champions’, do you?’ But that’s exactly what they did! Suddenly you could hear it just about everywhere. When Poland liberated itself from communism, when the Berlin Wall fell, when Ceaușescu was deposed in Romania… somehow, it became a universal victory song. Since then, I’ve been fighting an almost daily battle to prove that it’s not in the public domain. It’s not a traditional, but a real composition, written by Roland Verlooven and Grand Jojo. It’s an incredible story, but it all started with Grün’s header in Rotterdam. If he hadn’t scored, our song would never have gone around the world. Those are the things you can’t control. There’s no rulebook in show business. That’s the magic of our line of work.”
The song found its way to the soundtrack of Invictus, featuring Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman, while it could also be heard on The Simpsons, in FIFA video games, and the list goes on. “Bear in mind that this is a song that had been put together in five or ten minutes,” Michel Verlooven laughs. “And don't forget that my dad was from Ghent, so he supported AA Gent rather than Anderlecht, but these were details which didn't bother him. He later wrote a title tune for FC Bruges as well, yet again published by Hans Kusters. He did it to do Hans a favour. Hans saw the commercial potential of that Anderlecht song in the cadre of the World Cup in Mexico, going on to further push it in countries abroad. My dad had no idea ‘Olé, We Are The Champions’ was such a hit in Asia. He suddenly saw huge revenues coming in from Japan and later heard from Hans what was behind it. The song continues to find a new life time and again. It's still being used in commercials today. It’s a lucky shot, but it’s down to Hans Kusters’ perseverance that it took off in such a fashion.”
If anything, the partnership between Hans Kusters and Roland Verlooven intensified in the following years – and with great success. Kusters brought in all sorts of promising talent from the Netherlands and Belgium for Verlooven to produce. This led to recordings with Ingeborg, Stef Bos, and Rowwen Hèze, all of which charted in Belgium, the Netherlands, or both.
In the studio with Clouseau’s drummer Bob Savenberg (second half 1980s)
“Whenever I came up with an artist, Roland had the freedom to say yes or no,” Kusters comments. “In the case of Stef Bos, Roland wasn't convinced at all that it would work. I more or less had to force him to produce him anyway. I often took him to Holland to visit performances of young artists together. He was always amazed by the Dutch; just as an example, he didn't really understand the appeal of a Limburg dialect group like Rowwen Hèze. Yet, I could confidently let him produce those kinds of projects, given that he always gave it his best, whatever it was. He knew exactly what to do. I never had to comment on anything. Roland could work with any artist and was always open to new genres. That was his great gift.”
Through Hans Kusters, Roland Verlooven also came across a pop group from Rhode-Saint-Genèse. The Flemish five-piece band fronted by singer Koen Wauters were called Clouseau. Koen’s older brother, Kris, played guitar and co-wrote most of the repertoire with drummer Bob Savenberg. When asked about Clouseau's early years, Kris Wauters comments, “In 1987, Clouseau suddenly got the chance to play at Marktrock, a pop festival in Leuven that also attracted national attention. By then, we had been playing for about three years, but we had never got beyond the local parish hall. When that invitation to Marktrock came, we considered recording a single for the first time. At the time, I was working in the promotions department of record company BMG Ariola. That’s how I knew Hans Kusters. So I approached Hans with a cassette of one of our songs, ‘Brandweer’.”
To Kris Wauters’ delight, Hans Kusters was immediately taken by the demo. “When someone comes along with good lyrics, a good song that gives you goosebumps, I believe it deserves to be recorded,” the publisher states. “I thought ‘Ik brand weer van verlangen’ (in English: ‘I’m burning with desire again’, having the pun that ‘brandweer’ also means ‘fire brigade’ – BT) was a catchy lyric. I was doing a lot of Dutch-language records with Roland Verlooven in those years; so when Kris Wauters and Bob Savenberg approached me with that demo, I immediately called Roland. There was no further discussion about it, especially after Roland had listened to the demo. He immediately fell in love with Koen Wauters’ voice, exclaiming, ‘Incredible, what a singer!’ Roland was convinced he could have a hit with those guys, while I still had my doubts.”
According to Jan Leyers, frontman of Soulsister and an aspiring record producer himself at that time, Roland Verlooven had been saying for years, “One day, a singer will emerge who has it all; the looks, the voice, the charisma.” After seeing Koen Wauters, he reportedly said, “I think this is the man.” In the studio, Verlooven and the youngsters of Clouseau got to work recording ‘Brandweer’. Kris Wauters still remembers that first recording session second by second.
“We didn’t have a clue what the studio business was like, so we really found ourselves under Roland Verlooven's wing. After Koen had recorded the lead vocals, Roland got to work with me on singing the second part. When I was done, he growled in that deep, slightly husky, mafia-like voice of his, ‘Yeah, cool, thank you, good, good,’ but I said, ‘Yeah, but there’s yet another part!’ I meant a third part, but Roland said, ‘Ah, doubling!’ He explained that this meant I would sing the same bit again, allowing him to layer the two recordings. So I sang the same part again, to which Roland said, ‘Good, thank you!’ In slight desperation, I then succeeded in explaining to him that this wasn’t the part I meant, to which he said, ‘Ah, a third part, yes, go ahead!’ So I sang a third part and Roland immediately got excited: ‘Yeah, great, double it, double it!’ So I sang that third part voice again. All of a sudden, the Clouseau sound was there, which we used so often subsequently. Of course, there was a genetic blend between Koen’s voice and mine, but those doubled, three-part harmonies more or less became our signature in those early days. We would never have considered doubling those voices if there hadn't been that initial misunderstanding with Roland.”
“After the recording was done, Roland said to us, ‘Okay, now off you go into the kitchen.’ There were five of us, and Roland, of course, immediately realised he didn't want us in the control room while he and the sound engineer were working on the mix. He wanted to avoid having to reply to comments such as, ‘A little louder here,’ ‘I can’t hear this element clearly,’ given that we didn’t know anything about recording. So we went to the studio kitchen to wait for the mix to be finished. After a few hours, he let us back into the control room. He then asked the engineer to turn up the volume, and then we heard the mixed version of ‘Brandweer’ blaring through the big speakers for the first time. Yeah, that was a great moment... and Roland sat in the corner of the studio with a big smile on his face.”
Clouseau's first three singles failed to impress the record-buying public (reportedly, ‘Brandweer’ only sold 427 copies), but then ‘Alleen met jou’ became a minor hit in 1988, followed by the group's definitive breakthrough in the spring of 1989 with ‘Anne’. The song finished in second place in the Flemish selection for the Eurovision Song Contest, behind another protégé of Hans Kusters and Roland Verlooven, Ingeborg, with her song ‘Door de wind’. However, ‘Anne’ was a huge summer hit, not only in Belgium, but in the Netherlands as well. Both countries subsequently experienced an absolute Clouseau frenzy, with screaming girls and a new monster hit, ‘Daar gaat ze’, which, along with twelve other songs, appeared on the band's first album, Hoezo?, in 1989.
“The demo of ‘Daar gaat ze’ still had regular drums, bass and snare, on the second and fourth beats of the bar,” Kris Wauters remembers. “I thought this sounded a bit clichéd, so I suggested simply playing the bass drum on every beat, without the snare. Then Roland came up with the idea of adding guitars. This exchange of ideas between Roland and me always happened very quickly. From the very first moment, I clicked really well with him. He was also a great arranger, coming up with little additions which really made a song better. He also knew how to avoid overcomplicating things. He would say, ‘You know, that bit, leave it out, there’s no need for such thing.’ We were sometimes looking for all kinds of intricacies, but Roland didn’t allow for clutter to remain behind in our music. His arrangements were always very clear. Hans Kusters had given him a tight budget, which meant he didn’t have many days in the studio to complete the album. Moreover, he knew we were an inexperienced band which couldn’t play everything perfectly in one take. That’s why he was looking for quick fixes, band arrangements which were relatively easy to play while still sounding attractive. Roland was a master at that.”
“Of course, we could also clash, because I would interfere with everything, but it was always a pleasure to work with Roland. He was really funny with that charming Ghent accent of his. I'm a bit of a stickler for detail… and one time, I found myself singing a backup vocal. Roland was satisfied, but I felt I could do a bit better. ‘Oh yeah, okay, fine, one more time,’ he grumbled. Well, I proceeded to sing it two, three, four, five times over – and then, at some point, Roland just said, ‘You know, do whatever you like, lad, I’m off to have a meal!’ Then he went to the kitchen, looking for a microwave dinner from the freezer, but that’s not what he called it. Roland referred to them as Little Chernobyls (‘Chernobyllekes’ – BT). He could come up with such remarks all the time. He was just very, very funny. It was great to work with that type of guy. Of course, he was a lot older than us, but the age difference never played a part. At that early stage, we were looking for a seasoned producer, someone who had seen it all. I also had the impression that he enjoyed working on our type of music. He mainly worked in the popular scene with artists like Willy Sommers, so he didn’t come across a pop group like Clouseau on a daily basis.”
“During those years, besides Clouseau, Roland asked me to do a lot of backing vocals for other artists. There weren’t that many male backing vocalists in Flanders. Roland preferred working with a fixed team in the studio. He was happy to have found a guy who could sing backing vocals ably and with ease. He would call me to record with Willy Sommers, Bart Kaëll, or whoever else. In fact, I sang backing vocals on pretty much all of Roland's productions at the time.”
In those years, Roland Verlooven also produced albums with Jo Lemaire, Margriet Hermans, and Bart Kaëll. In the studio in Herent, near Louvain, where Verlooven worked most frequently in the 1980s, he recorded Bart Kaëll’s debut album in 1989. It included ‘De Marie-Louise’, a Verlooven composition and still the Schlager artist’s biggest hit. Michel Verlooven recalls how the song came about.
“My dad came home from the studio while my mother was preparing dinner. He was really upset; they turned out to be one song short for Bart Kaëll's album; ‘Goddammit, how on earth did we fail to notice that?’ By then, he had already booked the musicians for the next day. It was too late to cancel the session, so he sighed, ‘Okay then, I’ll just have to put something together.’ So, while my mother was still busy in the kitchen, he went to his study, grabbing the guitar. By the time we sat down to eat, he had already found the beginning of a melody. Within an hour of us leaving the table, he had finished ‘De Marie-Louise’. ‘Yeah, okay, that’ll have to do,’ he said… and that ended up being the hit from that album. Unbelievable! Unfortunately, the story with Bart Kaëll didn't end well. My father had started writing new songs for a follow-up album, when he heard that Bart had turned to a producer from the Netherlands behind his back (Hans van Eijck – BT). Dad was quite angry about that.”
For singer and TV host Margriet Hermans, Verlooven produced a successful album entitled Als de nacht komt in 1990
Meanwhile, Willy Sommers’ career had found new breath after a long hiatus. Although success eluded him for a decade, Sommers, unlike his peer Bart Kaëll, never walked away from his producer and songwriter. In 1989, he finally managed to bag another major hit, with ‘Als een leeuw in een kooi’, for once a song not written by Roland Verlooven, but by his son Michel. Encouraged by his father, Michel had completed a conservatoire degree. He had also been a guitarist in Sommers’ band for a while, while also regularly playing sessions for his father’s productions. Poignantly, Michel had just decided to say farewell to the music business when ‘Als een leeuw in een kooi’ hit the charts.
“In the 1980s, Flemish show business was really at a low point,” Michel comments. “There seemed to be little or no future in it. Belgian productions barely got a chance on radio and television. My father therefore recommended that I look for another job. I ended up working for L’Oréal, something completely different. But I had already written the music to the song that would later be given the title ‘Als een leeuw in een kooi’. In fact, I had composed it quite a while before, for a Flemish singer named Yvan Brunetti. A demo I had made with my father and Brunetti ended up with a publisher in Munich. The original German lyrics were by Michael Kunze, the author of ‘Du’ by Peter Maffay and many other big hits. (…) Those Germans were eager to publish it, but unfortunately, we ended up in a dispute with them. As a result, Brunetti wasn’t allowed to sing for a year, so my song remained on the shelf.”
“Suddenly, Sommers was invited to host Tien om te zien, a TV show for VTM, the new private channel in Flanders. Eager to cash in on the exposure, Willy wanted to release a new single. My dad then wrote ‘Het water is veel te diep’, which was a hit. After that, an album had to be produced at the double, because Sommers was on television every week. ‘Damn, then I’ll have to write a few new songs,’ my dad exclaimed. ‘What do we have lying around here?’ Then he opened the drawer of his desk – and among some other titles, there was my song for Yvan Brunetti. My father then called Dennis Peirs, better known in Flanders as the radio DJ Jo met de Banjo, to write Flemish lyrics to it. (…)”
“We then rerecorded the music for Sommers. My dad changed a few things from the Brunetti demo, but not that much. The guitar and bass parts are mine. It would have been a considerable investment to rearrange that song for Sommers. Then Willy came into the studio, but it soon turned out the key of Brunetti’s demo wasn’t good for him and he couldn’t find his vibe in the original tempo. So dad told the sound engineer, ‘Let’s turn the tape down one semitone. It will be slower, and that half-tone off will feel more comfortable for Willy.’ And indeed, Willy suddenly felt the right vibe. In a flash, he recorded the song. My dad called this Sommers Magic. Once Willy had the right vibe, a recording usually happened very quickly. Dad was happy; and so was the record company, because they decided this song would be the new single. It was a megahit. Everywhere you went, you heard that song. It was number one in the charts for weeks on end.”
Another Verlooven production: Stef Bos’ debut album in 1990, which featured the singer-songwriter’s evergreen ‘Papa’
The success of VTM gave a tremendous boost not just to Sommers’ career, but to the Flemish recording industry as a whole. Yet, Roland Verlooven never advised his son to try his hand as a professional musician again. Meanwhile, Willy Sommers had sold all his other business interests, fully focusing on his showbiz career. After that, he started racking up hits just as in the old days.
“In 1991, twenty years after my debut as a recording artist, Roland felt we needed to do something special to shake people up a bit,” Sommers smiles. “That’s when he came up with the idea of recording a duet with Wendy Van Wanten, a girl featuring in the soft-erotic program De PinUp Club. Wendy was best known for her pronounced curves. I can still see myself sitting with Roland in a café in Brussels. In front of us were just a beer mat and a biro. We were joking around, ‘Wendy has two very big... eyes.’ Suddenly, Roland had the catchphrase, ‘Look deep into my eyes.’ (in Dutch: ‘Kijk eens diep in mijn ogen’ – BT). That was the title. He then went on to write a melody and lyrics around it. Well, we had hit bullseye yet again! I've often wondered where Roland always got those ideas from. If anything, he had an impeccable commercial sense.”
By 1990, it was high time to record a second studio album with Clouseau. The album was entitled Of zo, and featured another big hit, ‘Domino’. Roland Verlooven once again took care of the production. When asked about the recording process, Kris Wauters recalls, “One of the songs on that record was a song I had written, ‘Oh ja’. We recorded it, but I wasn't entirely satisfied with the song, because it lacked a bridge between the last two choruses. In between takes, I found myself chatting about it with the other guys in the band. Anyway, once the recording was done, Roland took me aside and said, ‘Hey, Kris, a bridge is cool, isn't it? But if you don’t need one, then you don’t need one!’ I didn’t know what to say! The Beatles had always inserted bridges in their songs – and now Roland Verlooven comes along telling me they’re actually superfluous? So then I checked out some of Roland's songs. I discovered these rarely feature a bridge. I’ve kept that in mind ever since. I still love a good bridge, but it's certainly not always a requirement. Roland had a clear vision of songwriting and was able to offer such valuable pointers, little pieces of advice, now and then.”
Looking back, the production of that second Clouseau album was much less smooth than the first, as Michel Verlooven remembers. “My dad always had a great working relationship with Kris, but the problem was that Koen also had a career as a host at VTM. He became the host of big TV shows. During the recording of that second album, my father had an appointment with Koen to record his singing parts, but Koen didn't show up. When my dad called him, he was told, ‘Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, but I’m at VTM now.’ Although the situation never damaged his personal relationship with Koen, my dad sure uttered more than one curse, I can tell you! Another time, the whole group couldn't make it, as they had a gig somewhere. It wasn't easy to finish those recording sessions properly. That’s why the parts were partially recorded or rerecorded by experienced studio musicians like Rony Brack, Eric Melaerts, and Bert Candries. To make matters worse, dad was criticised in press reviews for the sound mix being inadequate. Meanwhile, there were occasional arguments within the group, while friction arose with the record company as well. Bear in mind that Clouseau wasn’t his own project. They were a group he produced at the request of Hans Kusters. Finally, my dad simply said, ‘I’ve had enough. I don’t want to go on doing this’.”
“As time wore on, all sorts of things became matters of contention,” Kris Wauters confirms. “Furthermore, I think the story between us and Roland was pretty much over after two albums. We wanted to take things to the next level in terms of production and sound – mind you, I say this with the utmost respect for Roland, but he was a Schlager producer first and foremost. Moreover, we had our sights set on an international career with an English-language album, while Roland was primarily someone who knew the Flemish market. So, for our third album, we signed a contract with EMI. They had a clear vision of how they wanted to position us in Europe. They suggested Jan Leyers as the producer for our English album. We thought that was a good idea too, because Jan had enjoyed international success as part of Soulsister; and it was clear that he was a capable producer. We then went to Eurovision in Rome with a song produced by Jan, but we asked Roland to conduct the orchestra. Roland was happy to do that for us. It just goes to show that our relationship with him hadn’t soured in any way.” (much more about the episode in Rome in the Eurovision section of this article, below – BT)
Verlooven’s saying goodbye to Clouseau more or less coincided with a conscious decision to take a step back in broader terms. After all those years working flat out in the world of music, it was high time to slow down a bit. That’s partly why Roland and his wife had purchased themselves an apartment on the Costa Brava in 1989. Since then, they divided their time between Keerbergen and the sunny beaches of the Catalan coastal town of L’Escala.
“I was quite surprised when he called me to say they had bought an apartment in Spain,” Michel admits. “After having landed himself in a mess with the royalties of the Spanish version of ‘Zeven anjers, zeven rozen’, he had vowed never to set foot on Spanish soil again. He had even contracted food poisoning on that trip with Willy Sommers! My parents usually vacationed in the south of France. They loved the sunny climate down there. One day, they crossed the border into Spain and happened upon L’Escala. They liked the place and fell in love with an apartment building which was under construction. In 1989, when it was finished, they got the keys to their tenement. From then on, dad slowly started shedding some work here and there. He had seen the length and breadth of the business. Slowly, his inspiration had waned. It became harder to write songs; and he felt his time was up. As the music industry was evolving, he didn't always feel that eager anymore to follow along.”
Willy Sommers also noticed a decline in his producer’s usual productivity, “Roland would tell me he had been in Spain for a month. ‘I took my keyboard, but nothing's coming out. I don't know what's happening to me,’ he said. That was a problem, because we were looking to release a new CD. Roland then came up with the idea of making an album of Dutch-language covers of French songs. He had always had a great love for chansons. In our early days, we had often been to Paris together to see chansonniers perform. After all, we were then under contract with Vogue, a French company, which was the reason we found ourselves in Paris now and again. Anyway, for that covers’ album, Parfum d’amour, we selected a set of beautiful songs by Francis Cabrel, Michèle Torr, and others. (…). Because Roland continued to struggle coming up with new material, we repeated the process two years later with Profumo d’amore, featuring translations of Italian songs.”
The artisan at work in his home studio (c. 1994)
In 1995, after 25 years, Roland Verlooven took the decision to draw a line under his partnership with Sommers. “It was a beautiful spring day and we were sitting on my patio,” the singer recalls. “We were working on a compilation album of the best songs of the past 25 years. I had spread out the sleeves of all of my singles on the floor. Sitting together, we chose the songs for that sampler album. After we had reached a consensus, I opened a bottle of wine and we had a drink together. Then, out of the blue, Roland said, ‘Willy, I have to tell you something. I would like to call it a day. You and I have been through everything together... festivals, concerts, hits. That’s why I would suggest working with someone else. It could give your career a new boost.’ I was stunned. For me, it was a bolt from the blue. My discoverer, my musical father, was leaving me alone! I didn't sleep for a week.”
“Then I stumbled upon the record label Play That Beat and producer John Terra. That took some getting used to, but it turned out to have been another top-notch suggestion by Roland, because I scored more hits with John. I thanked Roland for that. I would never have made that decision to change producers myself, because I'm someone who’s incredibly loyal. Roland himself had to make the suggestion. In the following years, he often called me, ‘Willy, are you okay? Are you happy with your new team? If there’s anything I can do for you, just let me know.’ I told him I would happily receive new compositions from him. And he did actually write some more songs for me! I definitely recorded two or three of his pieces. So we parted on good terms. Our friendship remained. Roland and I still kept in touch regularly.”
Roland Verlooven kept on working throughout the 1990s, picking projects which he felt he was up to. Remarkably enough, considering he hadn't previously established himself as a children's music composer, in 1992 he wrote the song ‘Tien miljoen’ for Flemish youth TV idols Samson & Gert. Furthermore, he recorded several singles with Rocco Granata and a full-length album with former child star Nathalie Pâque from Liège. Verlooven also had a business interest in the record company Play That Beat, whose co-owner Théo Linder regularly commissioned him to take on certain productions. For example, he produced some of the studio recordings of Mama's Jasje, a popular pop group fronted by singer Peter Vanlaet. With his choice of covers of old Dutch-language hits such as ‘Laat me alleen’ and ‘Als de dag van toen’, the producer helped the band achieve several major chart successes in Belgium as well as the Netherlands.
“He had to convince Peter Vanlaet to record ‘Als de dag van toen’,” Michel Verlooven recalls. “He didn’t want to sing it at first. The original is by Reinhard Mey, a German singer. His Dutch version of that record sounds a bit strange, partly because of his heavy German accent. Roland eventually convinced Peter, ‘No, man, you have to approach that song a bit more leisurely, give it your stamp.’ So Peter gave it a try; and it was another big hit.”
An inseparable duo for a quarter of a century – Roland Verlooven and Willy Sommers
Because Bart Kaëll had also signed for Play That Beat, Roland Verlooven, despite the bad experiences of ten years earlier, returned to the recording studio with this singer. This resulted in the album Noord & Zuid. However, the biggest success from the final phase of Verlooven’s professional career was his involvement as a songwriter with the boy band Get Ready. In 1996, they scored top hits in Flanders with ‘Diep’ and ‘Laat’. Both of these dance tracks, as well as more than half the songs on their debut album, were written entirely by Armath.
“Get Ready was a discovery by the two guys who started the record company Play That Beat,” Michel Verlooven comments. “They asked my dad to write a song for a boy band, and he came up with ‘Diep’. He may have been approaching sixty, but that wasn’t a problem for him. Writing a dance song was something completely different. He had written everything imaginable for Willy Sommers. He didn’t want to repeat himself, which had made it more and more difficult to write good songs for Willy. But now, with Get Ready, he could start from scratch. He wrote ‘Diep’ in next to no time. Then the arrangements and production were done by someone else, a young guy working on a synthesiser. The same was true for the other songs my father composed for Get Ready.”
Get Ready’s lead singer, Jimmy Samijn, fondly remembers his brief collaboration with Roland Verlooven, “Roland was like a grandfather to us. He could make pronouncements that would make you laugh out loud. (...) If it hadn’t been for Roland, we might not have been around anymore.”
In 1998, Roland Verlooven celebrated his sixtieth birthday. For him, this was the moment to call it a day. The years of hard work had taken their toll, according to Michel. “He himself confessed that he was exhausted. When you’re a producer, your aim is to deliver quality productions, time and again. The stress that came with that had taken its toll. In the following years, he really enjoyed the start of his retirement years, which were mainly spent in Spain. There wasn’t a great adventurer in him. He enjoyed reading books, watching television, and taking the occasional walk. Or he would meet up with Hans Kusters, who owned a holiday house nearby. At one point, he developed heart problems. The surgeon told him to quit smoking; otherwise, he refused to operate on him. That’s when he quit overnight. That was quite an achievement, because he had always been a heavy smoker. Health-wise, he enjoyed some good years after that.”
At home in Keerbergen (c. 2010)
When in Belgium, Roland loved hanging out with his old music friends, such as Kris Wauters. “The three of us often met up; Roland, me, and Yannic Fonderie, a synthesiser player and programmer, with whom Roland had collaborated almost continuously in the 1980s and 1990s. Yannic programmed the drums on almost all of Clouseau's early records. Our meetings were always at the old printing house, in which Yannic had built his studio. We would sit together and do a recording – not at all with the intention of creating something that would end up in stores, but simply for old time’s sake. Roland also came to one of our Clouseau concert series at the Sportpaleis in Antwerp. He enjoyed the evening, but he didn't miss his work. On the contrary, he enjoyed being in Spain, disconnected from the music business in Belgium. We would call each other every now and again. Our conversations were always incredibly warm and pleasant.”
In 2015, Roland Verlooven briefly returned from Spain to accept an award. Along with Vaya Con Dios lead singer Dani Klein and guitarist Roland Van Campenhout, he was inducted into VRT Radio 2’s Hall of Fame, tantamount to a lifetime achievement award. The ceremony took the shape of a gala held at the Casino Kursaal in Ostend. On stage, Roland was surprised by the presence of two of his oldest friends, Hans Kusters and Le Grand Jojo. Moreover, Kris Wauters did a cover version of ‘Diep’, Roland's hit for Get Ready, while Willy Sommers and Bart Kaëll also performed one of the old master’s compositions. Although the occasion was enjoyable, it was clear to everyone that Roland's health had taken a downward turn.
“I met him backstage, in the long hallway,” Kris Wauters recounts. “He recognised me immediately; ‘Hi Kris, buddy, how are you?’, and then we hugged. I hadn't seen him in a year and a half. I suggested we would have a meet-up afterwards in the game room of the casino, Roland, me, and Yannic, who had also come down. This gave us the opportunity to finally have a proper catch-up. ‘Ah, yes, definitely, good, good,’ he said. Then he took a notebook from his jacket and made a note with a pencil. I watched him in amazement. When he saw my questioning look, he said, ‘Yeah, I have to write it down, otherwise I’ll forget.’ I also noticed he wasn’t finding the words easily. Mere months later, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. When I called him in the following months, he was increasingly struggling for words. It was sad to see how someone who had always been so focused on language in his songwriting was losing his gift of speech.”
Fortunately, Roland Verlooven was able to enjoy the Spanish sun for a few more years. He finally returned to Belgium in the summer of 2017. He died in November of that same year in the Damiaan geriatric institution in Tremelo, aged 79. One of the first to hear the sad news was Willy Sommers. “I’ll never forget; it was on All Saints’ Day. Michel called me, while I was sitting in a restaurant with my wife. When he told me his father had passed away, it came as a blow. Of course, I knew he wasn’t well, but now that the moment was there when I lost my best friend, my musical father, the emotions were truly overwhelming. I had only good experiences with Roland. I can’t say a single negative word about him. He was a sweet, nice guy, a bon vivant, with whom I shared my joys and sorrows. Roland is the common thread in my life.”
Sporting his award at the VRT Radio 2 Gala in Ostend (2015)
When Roland Verlooven’s death was announced, articles appeared in the Flemish press, featuring former colleagues sharing their memories of the man alternately portrayed as the ‘godfather of Flemish showbiz’ and the ‘Flanders’ music pope’. Naturally, Roland’s close friend, Hans Kusters, was one of the speakers at the funeral.
When asked if he thinks back to Roland Verlooven regularly, Kusters replies, “Oh, absolutely! I miss Roland, not just as a friend, but also as a producer. I’m still working, and, when some new band comes along, I can’t help thinking, ‘Damn, that would be a job tailor-made for Roland.’ It feels like hitting a brick wall, because who else could I ask? Certain statements of his have always remained with me. One that has always stuck in my head is about pop lyrics. Roland always said they were only about three things, ‘She comes,’ ‘she’s there,’ and ‘she leaves.’ Of course, you can insert ‘he’ instead of ‘she’, but when you think about it, it’s true. Whether it’s sentimental songs or country or whatever, it almost always comes back to those three themes: is, leaves, comes. Roland had a very clear vision of music.”
Following in his master’s footsteps, Kris Wauters of Clouseau ended up in the production business. “Without a doubt, I still use elements of what Roland taught me on a daily basis. Back then, I was very young, absorbing every detail of Roland’s way of going about things. When I was booked to sing backing vocals for him, I usually showed up early in the studio. Often, Roland would still be working on, let’s say, a guitar session. I would just sit there in a corner for an hour and a half, quietly watching and listening. I learned a tremendous amount from that. It’s fair to say Roland was my musical father. Of course, I've followed my own path since those days, but I couldn't possibly erase what Roland meant to me, even if I wanted to.”
The last word goes to Michel Verlooven. “My dad looked back more fondly on the folk productions he’d done than on the out-and-out commercial hits, even though those had obviously earned him by far the most. Making hits came easily to him. He could imagine what the Flemish audience wanted to hear – a song which might not be impressive on a musical level, but which had broad appeal. Ultimately, he was one of the few of his generation who could make a living as a producer and songwriter in the small Flemish music scene. Yet, towards the end of his life, he wondered whether he shouldn’t have gone bigger. He spoke his languages very well: French, German, and English. Shouldn’t he have moved to France or Germany to make it there? It goes without saying that I’m very proud of my father. He started from nothing and was the main record producer in Belgium for years.”
At the 2015 Radio 2 Gala in Ostend, flanked by his old pals Grand Jojo (left) and Hans Kusters
EUROVISION SONG CONTEST
Although Roland Verlooven had been working as a record producer since the mid-1960s, it wasn’t until the late 1980s when he first became involved with the Flemish preliminaries of the Eurovision Song Contest. As a producer and songwriter, Verlooven clearly had other priorities than the festival. “We never really watched that sort of programme,” laughs Roland's eldest son, Michel Verlooven. “Canzonissima, Eurosong... he didn't care for that. He felt it was old-fashioned, often featuring second-rank singers making a desperate attempt to boost their career. He didn’t want to be part of that. Generally speaking, he wasn’t fond of music competitions. Strange perhaps, considering the commercial opportunities they offered, but that's the way it was.”
“Eurovision wasn’t Roland’s main goal,” confirms Willy Sommers, the artist with whom Verlooven collaborated continuously from 1971 to 1995. “A festival is a competition; and there’s always the risk of not coming out on top. We’ve seen it happen so often here in Belgium, when everybody is convinced our candidate will win Eurovision, with the song then going on to finish in last place. Roland always said to me, ‘Willy, stay away from it; you have more to lose than there is to win!’ I have to say I wouldn’t have dared to take part anyway. You have to prove yourself in front of millions of television viewers in three minutes, and accidents happen so easily, you know.”
Verlooven’s good friend, music publisher Hans Kusters, with whom he had worked since time immemorial, had a completely different view on the matter. “I don’t want to bring up the subject of the Eurovision Song Contest as it is today, but back in the 1970s and 1980s, it was a very interesting event to take part in,” Kusters comments. “I had the publishing rights of many Belgian entries; Pierre Rapsat, Jean Vallée, Dream Express, and also Linda Lepomme and Barbara Dex. It didn't really matter if you did badly in the voting, because you were practically guaranteed the song would stay around for months. As an example, Linda Lepomme’s song (‘Laat me nu gaan’ in 1985 – BT) finished last, but De Strangers did a cover of it in the Antwerp dialect. Of course, it was a parody, but it was incredibly well-made. Plus, this generated income for me, because I owned the rights to it. Competing internationally in Eurovision was always a pleasant experience; a nice event. It had prestige, with an orchestra and great songs. These days, the festival is no longer worth your time, but in the old days it had the power of simplicity.”
In the late 1980s, Hans Kusters had a wide range of young artists under his wing. These included Ingeborg Sergeant and Stef Bos, a couple studying together at Studio Herman Teirlinck in Antwerp, and Clouseau. While Clouseau were a band trying to force their breakthrough with Dutch-language pop, Stef Bos, originally from the Netherlands, wrote intricate and theatrical songs. One of Bos’ early compositions was called ‘Door de wind’, with lyrics dedicated to his ailing mother. Bos had Ingeborg perform it. Hans Kusters saw the potential of the song, submitting it to the selection committee for the 1989 BRT Eurovision heats. Kusters naturally turned to Roland Verlooven for the production and arrangement of ‘Door de wind’.
Ingeborg with Stef Bos after winning the 1989 Belgian Eurovision pre-selection in Brussels
“I had to convince Roland to work with Ingeborg and Stef,” Hans Kusters confesses with a smile. “When someone comes along with good lyrics, a good song in Dutch that gives you goosebumps, I believe it deserves to be recorded. When such artists came along, I took them to Roland and Roland worked with them on my behalf. I did had to convince him every now and then. He didn’t think Stef Bos would be successful, but we released his work anyway!”
“Stef wanted to avoid losing the intimacy of ‘Door de wind’,” Ingeborg recalls. “As he saw it, it had to have a tangible, vulnerable quality to it. He didn’t give Roland the freedom to do whatever he liked. The orchestration was the result of an exchange of ideas between the two of them. Roland understood the art of creating an arrangement which stayed true to Stef’s original intentions, yet was still commercial enough for radio airplay and a wider audience.”
Asked about Verlooven’s commercial outlook, Hans Kusters explains, “Just like me, he had been ‘damaged’ in our early years in the recording business at Phonogram, the recording division of Philips. Everything had to be commercial. A singer accompanying himself at a piano is the opposite of that... and so is folk and cabaret. Roland could be dismissive of actors, who often spoke in a very snooty standard Dutch. He’d poke fun at that, saying things like, ‘I’ll pierce you with my sword,’ with a very exaggerated intonation. In its original version, as conceived by Stef, ‘Door de wind’ was slightly theatrical as well. Roland embellished it a bit with a modest arrangement. I was happy to give him free rein in that, because Roland was a fantastic arranger. In Belgium, you had Francis Bay and Freddy Sunder, but Roland’s arrangements were on a different level. They were much better. He was a man of profound emotions immersed in music 24/7 – and he transposed those emotions into beautiful productions.”
Besides ‘Door de wind’, Hans Kusters also submitted a second song, ‘Anne’, an up-tempo piece recorded by Clouseau. Kusters suggested an idea for the arrangement to Verlooven. “I told him, ‘Why not start a cappella?' That hadn’t happened in pop songs for a while. I’m not an arranger, of course. Trumpets here, bass a bit heavier there – that’s not for me to decide, because this isn’t my job, so I never interfered. The only thing I always made sure of was if the lyrics could be understood word for word. When ‘Anne’ came out with that a cappella intro, I never thought about claiming any arranging credit. It was just a little idea. Roland was the arranger and producer; it was never about what he or I had come up with. We worked as a team, full stop. Sometimes the process goes one way, sometimes another. You can’t win them all.”
Clouseau and their entourage celebrating the hit success of the single release of ‘Anne’ in 1989; standing, from right – publisher Hans Kusters with his secretary Bertje Laforce; behind her drummer Bob Savenberg; Koen Wauters, and bass guitarist Karel Theys; crouching, from right – guitarist Tjen Berghmans, Kris Wauters, and Roland Verlooven; half hidden behind Roland is Hans Kusters’ assistant Roland Keytaert
Both ‘Door de wind’ and ‘Anne’ made it to the Belgian pre-selection, called Eurosong. Somewhat unexpectedly, Ingeborg won the competition, pushing Clouseau into second place. ‘Anne’ was released as a single straight after the event. Although the song did not win, it marked Clouseau’s breakthrough to a wider public in Flanders and the Netherlands. “Eurovision regulations stipulated that participants in the international final could only release their song as a single shortly before the event,” explains Kris Wauters, Clouseau’s guitarist. “Those rules were strictly adhered to. Consequently, Ingeborg had to wait for more than a month after the Belgian pre-selection before she could release her single, while we were free to do as we pleased. That’s how ‘Anne’ was released two days after Eurosong, with the song turning out to be a huge summer hit.”
Although Ingeborg’s single also sold well and received a lot of radio airplay, the song failed to stand out at the international final in Lausanne. With the orchestra led by Freddy Sunder, the chief conductor of the BRT Big Band, who had also conducted the Belgian preliminary round, Ingeborg only picked up thirteen points, resulting in a nineteenth place in a field of of twenty-two participants. Hans Kusters subsequently provided a budget, which Ingeborg used to release her first album, Voor één seconde, produced by Roland Verlooven. Ingeborg’s follow-up single was ‘Ga niet weg’, co-written by the songstress and her arranger. In contrast to the introverted ‘Door de wind’, ‘Ga niet weg’ was an out-and-out pop song with rather heavy percussion.
“Roland wasn’t very interested in our theatrical songs,” Ingeborg recalls. “So he would come up with a song like ‘Ga niet weg’. Whenever I came up with a little song with just piano and guitar, he wasn’t a fan at all. We recorded those songs in one take, and then he would say something like, ‘Well, that was the soporific part of the job.’ His mind was fixed on moving on quickly to the songs he thought could climb the charts. I say all of this with the utmost of respect for Roland. After all, he helped launch my career. Besides, who was I to argue with him? He had built an impressive career in commercial music… and I rode on that wave, so to speak.”
Michel Verlooven has another anecdote to share about recording Ingeborg’s debut album. “Ingeborg probably won’t have told you this, but my dad literally fell asleep during the recording of one of her introverted songs. Really! He just felt it was utterly boring. He fell asleep at the control panel! Ingeborg was really angry about that. It was an anecdote he loved to tell later on. Yeah, he had a good laugh about that.” The partnership between Ingeborg and Roland Verlooven ended after the recording of Voor één seconde. Her second album was also released by Hans Kusters’ label, but the production was taken care of by a Dutch musician, Ton Scherpenzeel.
Ingeborg during rehearsals at the 1989 Eurovision Song Contest in Lausanne
In early 1990, Clouseau were at the height of their fame. After their breakthrough with ‘Anne’, the group released two albums produced by Roland Verlooven, both of which topped the sales charts in Flanders and the Netherlands. Two massive hits followed with ‘Daar gaat ze’ and ‘Domino’. However, the recording of the second Clouseau album, Of zo, had not been an easy ride for Verlooven. Meanwhile, the charismatic lead singer, Koen Wauters, was also making a name for himself as a TV host for the private channel VTM. Because his schedule had not always been well-organised, he regularly missed studio sessions. In addition, the group had tons of live gigs in Belgium and the Netherlands, making the scheduling of studio sessions a liability.
“It wasn't easy to finish those recording sessions properly,” Michel Verlooven comments. “That's why the parts were partially recorded or rerecorded by experienced studio musicians like Rony Brack, Eric Melaerts, and Bert Candries. To make matters worse, dad was criticised in press reviews for the sound mix being inadequate. Meanwhile, there were occasional arguments within the group, while friction arose with the record company as well. Bear in mind that Clouseau wasn’t his own project. They were a group he produced at the request of Hans Kusters. Finally, my dad simply said, ‘I’ve had enough. I don’t want to go on doing this’.”
Not long after the release of Of zo, Clouseau signed a new record deal with major label EMI. By that time, the group was eyeing an international breakthrough. EMI management suggested the band record an English-language album with Jan Leyers as their producer. “We thought that was a good idea (…), because Jan had enjoyed international success as part of [the pop duo] Soulsister; and it was clear that he was a capable producer,” says Kris Wauters.
This was followed, in the summer of the same year, by the news that the group had accepted an offer from Flemish public broadcaster BRT to represent Belgium at the 1991 Eurovision Song Contest in Italy without having to go through a pre-selection. The broadcaster's Entertainment Director, Jan Geysen, proudly announced the news to the press. Journalists commented on the decision as being a ‘Wiedergutmachung’, i.e. a reparation, after ‘Anne’ had failed to win the ticket to Lausanne in 1989. Others wondered whether, by this stage, the contest wasn’t more of a risk than an opportunity for the group, but band member Karel Theys would hear nothing of this suggestion. “Well, you shouldn’t always weigh up whether something suits you or not,” the bassist shrugged his shoulders, when asked about the matter by P-Magazine. “We’re just doing it, because it’s an alluring prospect. A week in Italy can’t be all that bad, can it? We’re aware of the risk; we have to win it, so that’s our aim. But honestly, if we lose, we won't lose a minute of sleep over it. (...) Only the future matters; and, yes, the way we look at it, our future is a European breakthrough. We took that into consideration when reaching our decision.”
Belgian representative Ingeborg backstage in Lausanne with guest of honour Céline Dion, winner of the previous edition of the contest
When asked now, after all those years, about the reasoning behind their participation in the contest in Italy, Kris Wauters states, “After we lost the 1989 Eurovision final, many people kept on saying how ‘Anne' would have been better-suited for the Eurovision final than Ingeborg’s song. In the following year, all the hype around Clouseau happened; with monster hits, sales records, and screaming girls. When it was BRT's turn again in 1991 to come up with a Eurovision candidate, they offered it to us. At that time, we had already started preparing our English-language album, Close Encounters, with Jan Leyers. We agreed on the condition that BRT would give us the opportunity to make a TV special, in which we could present our song for Italy to the Flemish public. We also requested a budget of one million Belgian francs, about 25,000 euros in today’s money. With that, we wanted to make sure we could build a promotional campaign, including a concert on the Spanish Steps in downtown Rome in the week leading up to the Eurovision Song Contest. Actually, we should have asked for double the amount, as everything turned out to be so expensive that we had to add some of our own money to get it sorted.”
“There were people around us who wondered if the festival was such a good idea, but that was all nonsense. Our management, for example, thought we had a lot to lose by then, but we just thought, ‘Why not?’ Ever since our boyhood, we had always watched the festival as a family. We felt we shouldn’t pass up opportunities like this. Besides, we got to choose the song without interference. We felt ‘Geef het op’ was the best of the crop of songs we had recently written. It was composed by me in collaboration with our drummer, Bob Savenberg. The English version was scheduled to be one of the tracks on our new album. In short, we didn't have to make concessions to Eurovision. We simply wrote a few songs in our own style and chose the one that appealed to us the most.”
‘Geef het op’ was an accessible pop song in the same vein as ‘Anne’. In the studio, Clouseau worked on the arrangement with producer Jan Leyers, his assistant Werner Pensaert, and programmer Yannic Fonderie. Apart from the rhythm track, the score featured prominent brass parts. These were recorded by The Styles Horns, a group of Dutch session musicians led by trombonist Jel Jongen. Ruud Breuls, who later joined the Metropole Orchestra and the WDR Big Band as a trumpet player, was part of this session group.
It so happened that around the same time, the BRT gave the members of its own TV big band, led by Freddy Sunder, their marching orders. In the spring of 1991, the contract of the conductor and his musicians expired, upon which all musicians were collectively dismissed. This meant that Freddy Sunder was no longer in the picture as the conductor of the BRT’s Eurovision entry, as he had been two years earlier. The broadcaster left the choice of conductor to Clouseau and record label EMI.
“We immediately thought of Roland Verlooven,” Kris Wauters recalls. “He was no longer the producer and arranger of our records, but we felt he was the perfect person for the job of conductor. We needed a seasoned musician who could properly manage the Italian orchestra. It just goes to show that our decision to work with a different producer hadn’t clouded our relationship with Roland. We were still on good terms with him. When the subject of the Eurovision orchestra was first raised, there was never any discussion in the group. ‘Who should conduct the orchestra for us?’ ‘Well, Roland, of course.’ We asked him, also out of love and gratitude for what he had meant to us. Roland happily agreed, and he converted the studio version into an orchestral chart for Rome, with strings and some small extras for the grand orchestra.”
Kris Wauters, Bob Savenberg, and Koen Wauters – Clouseau’s three frontmen on a BRT promotional photo from the early months of 1991
“He did it as a favour to Koen, Kris, and Jan Leyers,” Michel Verlooven adds. “He always had a good feeling about Kris in particular, who was a likeable guy. My father did have his doubts, because the Eurovision Song Contest wasn’t really his thing. He didn’t feel the urge to stand up as a conductor in front of a massive television audience. By nature, he was a somewhat reserved person. Besides, he wasn’t a trained conductor. He had never conducted an orchestra on television before, but when Kris pressed him, he found it hard to say no. Being the group’s producer, Jan Leyers would have been the first choice as conductor, but he wasn’t familiar with leading orchestras – and my dad had worked with strings and brass players in the studio since forever. Dad always had a good relationship with Jan Leyers. When Jan was working on his first production jobs, he would sometimes call my dad to ask about royalties and copyrights. My father had often been screwed by record companies in the early stages of his career. He enjoyed giving others advice and thus protecting them from the mistakes he himself had made previously.”
Once in Rome, the orchestral rehearsals proceeded without a hitch. Clouseau opted to use a pre-recorded rhythm track tape. Only the classical instruments were played live by the Italian orchestra. “Roland was very friendly, courteous, and professional in front of the orchestra,” recalls Kris Wauters. “He interacted with the musicians in a pleasant way, very easy-going, but sharp at the same time. He had done his homework beforehand, because the arrangements were flawless. That must have taken him a lot of work, but it made the rehearsals go very smoothly. There were no major obstacles to overcome.”
However, the week in Rome was not without problems for Clouseau. Their miniconcert on the Spanish Steps only came about after the intervention of Belgium’s Prime Minister Martens, who contacted his country's representative in the Vatican to appease Italian authorities. However, the performance had to be cut shortly after it began. Claiming the noise was too much to bear for the neighbourhood, Italian police pulled the plug. By that point, guitarist Chris Peeters had contracted a virus. He was so ill, that the decision was taken to repatriate him. His place on stage was taken over by producer Jan Leyers.
Moreover, a bombshell dropped back home in Belgium when Louis Van Rymenant, the producer of the worldwide success ‘The Chicken Dance’ (alternatively known as ‘The Birdie Song’), gave an interview in which he claimed that ‘Geef het op’ was not an original song. According to him, the bass line was identical to that of ‘Proud Mary’, a major hit for Creedence Clearwater Revival from the late 1960s, which had also enjoyed success in a cover version by Ike & Tina Turner. In Flanders, where Clouseau’s impending Eurovision victory was on everyone's lips, the newspaper article in which Van Rymenant made his plagiarism claims caused quite a stir.
Clouseau during rehearsals in Rome (with guitarist Chris Peeters, who was later repatriated due to illness, on the far left) backed up by the Italian orchestra, conducted by Roland Verlooven (with his arms wide)
“We suddenly received a call from Belgium about the accusation,” Kris Wauters recalls. “When I heard it had been compared to ‘Proud Mary’, I burst out laughing. We were accused of stealing the melody of the line ‘Rolling, rolling, rolling on the river’ from that song and copied it as ‘Geef het op, geef het op meisje’. ‘Well,’ I thought, ‘when looking at it that way, there are similarities,’ but our song had absolutely nothing to do with ‘Proud Mary’… not in a million years. Working with Bob Savenberg, I had cobbled it together without looking at other songs. I think it was a quiet period with little news, the result being that it was picked up by various media outlets. The BRT News bulletin at 7.30pm also did an item on it. That was on the eve of the Eurovision final. There was a satellite truck in Rome, and that’s how Roland Verlooven had a microphone shoved under his nose to give his opinion to the Belgian public live on the main news broadcast. When asked about his thoughts, he spoke the historic words, ‘It's better that it resembles something than resembling fuck-all.’ That was vintage Roland Verlooven. That was his sense of humour, using quite a bad swearword live on a serious news programme. Incidentally, the controversy quickly died down afterwards. We never heard anything about the accusation later on.”
In spite of high hopes in Belgium – Prime Minister Martens even travelled to Rome along with his Minister of Culture, Dewael, to share in Clouseau’s victory – the Belgian entry didn’t fare well. ‘Geef het op’ finished in sixteenth place, far behind Swedish winner Carola Häggkvist. Afterwards, TV commentator André Vermeulen asked lead singer Koen Wauters the obligatory question if he was feeling disappointed. “Yes, I really do feel extremely disappointed, but life goes on, doesn’t it? No, I couldn’t tell you what went wrong. Yes, perhaps it’s wise to postpone our European breakthrough plans for a while.” In actual fact, Clouseau’s European breakthrough never materialised. On the other hand, the group’s success in the Low Countries has endured to the present day. Perhaps one cannot escape the conclusion that ‘Geef het op’ is not among the best songs in the group's repertoire.
“After that endless voting procedure, we left the building as dignified losers,” Kris Wauters says with a laugh. “We didn’t feel like sitting around moping. We had a blast in the Roman nightlife, capping off what had been a fantastic week. We even got back to the hotel only just in time to catch our flight home the next morning. Roland didn’t come with us to have a drink. He must have spent the night in his hotel room! I don’t remember him being on the same flight as us either. I wouldn't be surprised if he took another flight straight to his apartment in Spain.”
Two years later, Roland Verlooven again made a bid for Belgian representation at the Eurovision Song Contest, although once more the initiative did not come from him, as his son Michel explains, “After the success of the hit ‘Als een leeuw in een kooi’, which I wrote for Willy Sommers (in 1989 – BT), I was no longer a full-time musician, having focused on a career in pharmacy instead. I still dabbled in a few things, though. For example, I worked with Robin Nills, a singer who, like me, lived in Antwerp. He was an acquaintance of my sister-in-law. My dad and I did a vocal test with him in the studio in Herent. We then recorded several singles with him, featuring songs I composed to my dad’s lyrics. Robin was keen to take part in Eurosong in 1993. At that time, his track ‘Je vliegt’ was getting a lot of airplay (…), and someone from the BRT approached him about participating. My dad and I didn’t immediately relish the prospect, but we put together a song for him, ‘Ballerina’. We reached the finals with it, but it didn’t come close to winning. Robin later worked with Bert Candries as a producer, but he never really had a breakthrough.”
In the greenroom in Rome – standing, from left; Koen Wauters, Roland Verlooven, and Karel Theys – seated, from left; Bob Savenberg, Kris Wauters, and Jan Leyers
Three years later, Verlooven was involved in the Belgian Eurovision pre-selection for the last time. At the time, he worked with pop group Mama’s Jasje, who were primarily successful with covers of old hits. Mama’s Jasje were signed to the record label Play That Beat, in which Verlooven had a business interest. In 1996, the group’s lead singer, Peter Vanlaet, made a brief solo foray with ‘Er is iets’, a song that reached the final of De Gouden Zeemeermin, the one-time title of the Flemish heats. Vanlaet wrote the song with Walter Mannaerts and Marc Vanhie. Although the song had by far the best orchestral part of the evening – naturally penned by Roland Verlooven – it did not reach higher than fourth place. First place went to Lisa Del Bo and her entry ‘Liefde is een kaartspel’. In spite of not winning, Peter Vanlaet managed to score a modest hit with the single release of ‘Er is iets’.
How would Roland Verlooven have looked back on that one Eurovision appearance as conductor in Rome in 1991? Close friend Hans Kusters offers a guess. “Honestly speaking, Roland was happiest in the studio. He loved working with musicians there, and, if need be, he’d stand in front of them to conduct... but he didn't consider himself a conductor in the true sense of the word. He enjoyed arranging, but he didn’t like being the centre of attention. He was a man of the background. He did come along to Italy to please the guys of Clouseau, but he personally didn’t think too much of it.”
“Still, I’m sure he had a wonderful time in Rome,” Kris Wauters concludes. “Yes, one-hundred percent sure. He enjoyed the experience. We always made sure to enjoy any show we were part of; and Roland joined in the fun. It’s true that he didn’t necessarily enjoy the limelight, but aside from that one shot of him ahead of our performance, when he was introduced to the audience, he didn’t have a camera pointed at him. Koen was the one in the foreground, getting all the attention. Roland could quietly do his job with the orchestra behind us.”
“Last year (in 2024 – BT), we gave a series of concerts with Clouseau at the Sportpaleis in Antwerp to celebrate our fortieth anniversary. In preparation, I watched a lot of old footage – including our Eurovision performance in Rome. When I saw Roland in that white costume standing in front of the orchestra, it brought a smile to my face. That is nostalgia at its finest! For our show, we projected that footage on the screen behind us, then slowly turned down the sound and performed ‘Geef het op’ in a contemporary version. I can tell you, the audience went wild! ‘Geef het op’ has become a Clouseau classic. The Eurovision Song Contest result wasn’t what we had hoped for, but we’ve always been convinced that you shouldn’t miss the opportunity to perform on that stage. It’s wonderful to be able to tell your grandchildren later that you once did Eurovision. Honestly, we’ve never regretted taking part in the contest.”
OTHER ARTISTS ABOUT ROLAND VERLOOVEN
Producer and multi-instrumentalist Jean Blaute states, “Roland was a guide for a whole bunch of Belgian musicians. He could sense the pulse of a wider audience like no other." (2017)
Koen Wauters, lead singer of Clouseau, recalls, “Roland took care of the production of our first two albums. It mustn’t have been easy to work with this young, ragtag band. I learned a great deal from him, also on a personal level. Roland was an epicurean, a bon vivant, and a great storyteller. I’ll think back of him fondly." (2017)
EUROVISION PARTICIPATIONS YEAR BY YEAR
Country – Belgium
Song title – “Door de wind”
Rendition – Ingeborg Sergeant
Lyrics – Stef Bos
Composition – Stef Bos
Studio arrangement – Roland Verlooven
Live orchestration – Roland Verlooven
Conductor – Freddy Sunder
Score – 19th place (13 votes)
Country – België
Song title – “Geef het op”
Rendition – Clouseau (Kris Wauters / Koen Wauters / Bob Savenberg / Paul Poelmans / Karel Theys feat. Jan Leyers)
Lyrics – Kris Wauters / Bob Savenberg / Jan Leyers / Koen Wauters
Composition – Kris Wauters / Bob Savenberg / Jan Leyers / Koen Wauters
Studio arrangement – Jan Leyers / Werner Pensaert / Yannic Fonderie / Clouseau
Live orchestration – Roland Verlooven
Conductor – Roland Verlooven
Score – 16th place (23 votes)
SOURCES & LINKS
- Bas Tukker interviewed Roland Verlooven’s son Michel twice in Breda; July 2024 & March 2025. Furthermore, Michel Verlooven provided valuable documentation from his father’s legacy, for which many thanks.
- Other interviewees for this article are: Rony Brack (February 2019) / Bert Candries (January & February 2024) / Hans Kusters (June 2024) / Ingeborg Sergeant (July 2024) / Roel Van Bambost (July 2024) / Willy Sommers (July 2025) / Kris Wauters (July 2025) / Eric Melaerts (September 2025)
- Anon., “Rome”, in: P-Magazine, September 7, 1990
- Jo Van Damme, “Daar gaan ze”, in: De Post, May 10, 1991
- Tania Ghyselinck, “Blues & evergreens in de eregalerij”, in: Sabam Yearbook 2015, pg. 10-11.
- Various newspaper articles about Roland Verlooven, particularly around his passing in November 2017
- A selection of Roland Verlooven’s music can be discovered via this link
- Photos courtesy of Michel Verlooven, Hans Kusters, Willy Sommers, Rui dos Reis, and Ferry van der Zant
- Thanks to Mark Coupar for proofreading the manuscript
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